One of our favorite SF artists shows us some of his newest works.
We've been fans of Mars for so long now. When we were doing Low Gallery, he was one of the first that we asked to show. We carry everything he produces @Umbrella and hang out with him whenever we can, because the guy just plain rules it. He's talented as fudge. He's nicer than Gandhi... He's just the cats meow, and we're pleased to show you some of his newer works.

Age?

28

Location?

San Francisco Ca

What brought you to SF? School?

I moved here from Fresno in late '96 after graduating high school to attend the Academy of Art University... I am left Handed. You didn't ask, but I thought to tell you anyway.

On average, how long does it take you to finish a work?

It can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks depending on how much of a non-stop paint marathon I feel like going on. Like most things, Size matters and, of course, sleep is important.

Describe your process for creating a work.

The beginning stage consists of splashing around paint and something that might almost resemble finger painting . This is very fun for it's lack of control, looseness and opportunity experiment and try something new, with hopefully some happy accidents along the way.
At this point, before I pick up a paint brush and start to render, I have a surface that gives off a similar effect of staring up into the sky on a cloudy day, letting the mind create recognizable "things" or objects out of abstract shapes.
Once I start to paint, I keep my sketch book handy for elements to inject into the painting and usually a quick flip through it will yield new ideas or variations of older ones. Then one billion hours later, Walla! Finished painting. It's that EZ.

Your friends with Damon Soule. What's he up to?

I haven't heard from him in awhile... He's lives in NYC now-a-days, doing God knows what, but I assume mostly working hard on some new art. Here are some links to pics (one - two) of our 2 person show @ linage gallery in Philly last June-->

Your wife is from Portugal. How did she handle the World Cup?

She handled it pretty well. She's a champ. Hey, no one likes to lose, but making it to the semi finals not too shabby.

It's all over the place. Before an exhibit, it starts to resemble a routine of wake, stretch, meditate, emails, run errands, go to studio, paint, paint, paint, emails, 6:00 am time to sleep. wake up, and Repeat.

What are you excited about right now in art and in general?

This feeling of resurgence of interest in art and a younger generation of artist making headway, spreading their tentacles all over the place. With the Internet, letting it grow like wild fire, creating all these bizarre fractions of non-local subcultures.
I am not a big fan of labels and love the fact that a lot of what our peers are doing is causing people to have a hard time categorizing or labeling what exactly is happening. For example, look how the ol' town fecal has grown into this giant fecal monster. I was surprised to find out some of my friends in Europe are fecal regulars.

I am really psyched on some of the breakthroughs in quantum mechanics and implications, and strange undertone connection quantum theory makes with human consciousness. That's always mind boggling. I have been very excited about http://www.pandora.com The Music Genome Project... My buddy, Brin, who I work in the studio with first told me about it and then also noticed you posted it on the blog the other day. The last few weeks I have been going ape shit, discovering all kinds of bands I have never heard of and brushing up on info of old favorites. It's cool because some of original labels only pressed a few hundred albums in vinyl and just in the last few years they started to release them on C.D.
Here is a Quick laundry list:
Bola,
Starfire,
Television,
Plastic Cloud,
MC5,
Stalk-Forrest Group,
Clear Light,
The Misunderstood,
13th Floor Elevators,
The Moving Sidewalks,
Soft Machine,
Robert Wyatt,
John Surman,
EGG,
The Nice,
Proto-Kaw,
Blue Cheer,
Tomorrow,
Thomas Fehlmann,
Solvent,
Quicksilver Messenger Service,
High Tide,
Growing Concern, and
Pete Brown

You have shown in LA and NYC. How is the art scene different from SF in your experience? Do you find you sell more in one of those cities as opposed to SF and why do you think that is?

Well, I am definitely no expert on the subject. However, in my experience I've had much more luck selling work on the East Coast as opposed to SF. I believe it has to do with a wide range of factors. For starters just by default there is more money flowing through L.A. and New York. For me, selling work in SF has always been a hard sell, until recently. I thought we did pretty damn good when I showed with you at@ your gallery, LOW. With the Internet, it seems like more and more out-of-town collectors feel comfortable making art buying decisions over the Internet. I know some Gallery in S.F. that make a lot of their sales to people outside of the Bay area. I don't recall it being so much like that 3 or 4 years ago.

What do you think is the best art school to go to and why?

As far as Schools go in the Bay area,
from what I have seen and heard, California College of the Arts seems to have a nice blend between conceptual and technical work. Like I mentioned earlier, I went to the Academy of Art College that had a Fine Art Department that focused on a classical style that teaches strong technical skills, but left almost no room for exploration outside of those parameters. One unfortunate side affect is, a lot of students who attended AAC left with a style that looked very similar to one another.

Ever steal anything before?

Not since I was like 6 years old, maybe some markers
and
spray paint along the way .
But mostly, I hate thieves. And, my hatred grows.
Recently while I was working in the basement, someone burglarized my apartment upstairs, not much to steal but my laptop my Fucking LAPTOP NO NOOOOO! "Die MOTHER FUCKER DIE!!!! "

What do you have coming down the line?

Natural and Unnatural: Imagining Landscape a group exhibition at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, NJ Opening reception: Sunday September 10th, 2-4pm hunterdonartmuseum.org

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

Material published on FECAL FACE DOT COM online service is copyrighted by Fecal Face or its licensors, including the originating wire services. Such material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and treaties. All rights reserved.

Users of the Fecal Face online service may not reproduce, republish or redistribute material found on the web site in any form without the express written consent of the copyright holder.